Like many of us suffering through the chilly Vancouver winter, I caught a cold that left me sniffling and miserable. In a ploy to return to me to my usual chatty self and revive my spirits, SB offered to take me out to dinner. I was in the mood for something hot, so I suggested Bubble World, since we were at Metrotown anyway. As with Sushi Garden, SB and I have visited this location of Bubble World too many times to count, but I never bothered to blog about it until now.

Bubble World has ten locations scattered all over the Greater Vancouver area, with locations in Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, etc. As with any chain restaurant, Bubble World offers a consistent menu and a reliably consistent quality of food, although some locations only offer drinks. It’s not stellar by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s fine for what it is, which is why I’ve visited it so often.

To share, SB and I ordered the Five Spice Beef in Chinese Pancake ($5.25). (I was quite out of my element since the English descriptions on the menu aren’t that helpful, so I let SB do most of the ordering since his knowledge of Chinese is far superior to mine.) The pancake was way too doughy, and wasn’t at all crispy. The green onion was in one long piece, and didn’t really add anything to the dish texturally. The beef itself was very sweet, though. We both liked the hoisin sauce that was served on the side, which was thick and added a much-needed sweet flavour to the bland pancake dough.

SB also recommended that we have the Wonton in Chili Sauce ($4.95) to fill our spicy quotient for the meal. It was fairly one-dimensional, being hot, spicy, and oily. Despite being one-dimensional, we were satisfied, since it was exactly what we were looking for. Plus, even though I was a little disappointed, SB ensured me that this was exactly the way it’s supposed to taste, so oh well. The wontons came out really hot, and I had to wait a little before I could eat them (after burning the roof my mouth on the first one).

Usually my go-to item is the Salty Peppery Chicken, but because of my sore throat, I instead chose to order the Beef Noodle in Soup ($7.95). This was a reasonable portion with the usual noodles, beef shank, and bok choy in a salty broth. The beef was neither tough nor chewy, but was strangely bland in comparison to the broth. Most likely, the two were boiled separately and simply put together moments before arriving in front of me. The noodles had good bite, but I would have preferred them to be a tad softer. The beef itself was also a little fatty. The broth looks quite oily (which it was), but it was perfect for what I was craving.

Onto SB’s entree, which he ordered more out of curiosity than anything else. It was listed as Taiwanese Squid Thick with Rice ($7.75) on the menu, and neither of us knew what that meant. It turned out to be some thick soup-like mixture accompanied by a bowl of white rice. This tasted really herbal. It reminded me of when I was little and would visit my uncle’s store, which sold traditional Korean herbal medicines, which have a very distinct smell. My initial sampling of this reminded me quite strongly of those smells. For SB, it reminded him of hot and sour soup, and he didn’t think this was anything special. He took a while to get used to the taste, but did end up finishing the whole thing, although he mentioned that he probably wouldn’t order this again. Besides the titular squid, it also included a lot of sliced veggies.

We also ordered the Condensed Milk Toast ($3.95), one of my personal favourites. What is there to really say about this? It is literally just a piece of toast with condensed milk on top, and terribly unhealthy…so why do I like it so much? Well, the toast itself was soft and fluffy, and very lightly toasted, so that there’s just a slight difference to the texture of the bread. There really isn’t much that could go wrong here, but yum. Just looking at the picture makes me want to go back.

The two of us very much enjoyed our meal at Bubble World. This place isn’t gourmet by any means, and the service is always indifferent at best (is it against the law to give a customer more than one napkin at a time?), but it’s a decent place for cheap eats, with a sufficiently varied menu. I always forget that it’s cash only though.